After learning all they could about Gran Turismo 6, Chunx and SeanManly were off to visit “Brand ‘X’ (box)” – better known as Turn 10 Studios’ Forza Motorsport 5 for the Xbox One. With a far deeper well of computing power to draw upon, Forza 5 was everything you’d expect: visually gorgeous, with healthy doses of believable vehicle dynamics.

Forza Motorsport 5

While people waited in line to try FM5, members of the Turn 10 developers provided factoids about things like the game engine’s new math model for capturing tire camber changes when the car’s suspension is flexing, and the graphics engine’s ability to pump out 1080p visuals at a steady 60 fps. It’s a good thing that Turn 10 had employees to chat up folks waiting in the cue, because you had to spend a long time in it to get a shot at driving the game: Forza 5, a flagship launch title for the Xbox One, was shown with only one cockpit/wheel combo. The rest of the display consisted of four monitors with game pads. Contrast that to GT6, where Sony laid out an even dozen cockpit/T500RS sleds to savor that title with.

Putting the cherry on top of Forza 5 game display was a very early prototype of Thrustmaster’s new Xbox One wheel and pedals. When we say “prototype”, we mean “early development mule” − the wheel and pedals appeared to be a hodge-podge of parts bin raiding and metal project boxes never intended to see retail sale.

The Thrustmaster wheel and associated game code is clearly in an early and incomplete stage of development. Chunx noted how other people drove with the Thrustmaster development wheel; sawing back and forth as if they were trying to find center − perhaps due to input lag. Then when he drove FM5, he noticed that, to a certain extent, he was doing the same thing. Reviewing the videos the SimHQ Motorsports team took of FM5, it was clearly input lag. At the other end of the controller, all three of Thrustmaster’s pedals had the same, limp spring resistance, lacking the feel that a more polished product would have. In our opinion, Thurstmaster’s prototype wheel complicated anyone’s ability to assess the title, and actually hampered Turn 10′s ability to showcase Forza 5, which is unfortunate.

There was only one track to drive, a fictional street circuit in eastern Europe, which you got to complete one lap of. That’s about 2 minutes of driving to assess the game. With only one cockpit sled to demonstrate the title, there was little opportunity for the rank-and-file E3 attendee to get a feel for the game. Luckily, the Forza 5 launch party gave SinHQ Motorsports many more opportunities to try the game out.

The game isn’t anywhere close to being finished yet. Developers told us several times that the title is only a little over half-finished. So what everyone tried at E3 was essentially a WIP (work in-progress) and not fully reflective of the final product.

At the Forza 5 launch party, we watched another reporter try the title with most of the driving assists left on. It seemed apparent to us both that using all the driving aids/assists do not penalize your car’s performance, so it’s quite possible to get better lap times with certain combinations of aids. While that’s not surprising for a console racer, it is something we hope will be addressed by Turn 10 before final product release.

So, all those caveats aside, what did we think about Forza Motorsport 5?

It’s stunningly beautiful. The graphics power of the new Xbox One’s AMD hardware really shines through, and raises the bar of what’s possible for a racing simulation on consoles. Sun glare has a realistic impact on your ability to aim the car, reflections come, go and move on the windshield, shadows hide some track features. The sounds are equally impressive, changing in tone and pitch as trackside objects (like tunnel walls) reflect the engine sounds. Recognizing that any racing game needs to translate some dynamic vehicle motions into audio cues, the tire scrub and skid sounds are also very well done. Street tires sound like what you’ll hear at a track day event. Frankly, you’d expect no less from a game leveraging the latest gaming console technology.

In terms of physics, FM5 is dressed to impress. With all aids turned off, the car’s handling felt pretty realistic, punishing you with gross understeer if you over-drove it into the corners or snapping the tail out if you trail-braked a bit too aggressively. In one sweeping corner with a camber change, Chunx mashed the gas to develop some power-on oversteer. The car’s rear end immediately slid out, and a too-slow correction (input lag?) led to a tank-slapper into the outside wall. Unlike earlier versions of Forza there was no feeling that a “hand of god” would suddenly dampen the laws of physics and save you from disaster (and with the wheel lag present in the demo, there was A LOT of disasters at E3)… which is good news for sim racers looking for a realistic challenge. We didn’t get much of a sense of inertia from the car, but we have to chalk that one up to the state of the TM wheel and associated game controller code. So in spite of the wheel issues, Forza 5′s overall feel from the physics engine was pretty good.

Developer Interview

At one point in the show, Chunx had the honor of talking with Barry Feather, Turn 10′s Executive Producer, and Aleks Brooks of the development team. First off, Barry stated that as of E3, Forza 5 is at about the 50% – 70% stage of completion in terms of physics. Calspan is supporting Turn 10′s chassis physics and tire data collection, with Pirelli is the tire team providing Turn 10 with tire model data (via Calspan). What Turn 10 put together for E3 isn’t sufficient for a final product, so they’re still receiving more data and continuing to work on the tire and physics model to fully leverage the the Xbox One’s APU.

As for wheels, Barry tells us there will be there will be multiple wheel options for the Xbox One at launch of the game. We know Thrustmaster is one, but who is the other manufacturer? Barry wouldn’t say. One thing we do know is that no current wheel for any other gaming platform will be compatible with the Xbox One. There might be some mod kits in the future, but for now you’ll need a new wheel if you want to play FM5.

Barry also talked about the single player experience, and that there is no AI per-se in FM5. Now there are “Drivatars”, where your Xbox One learns your driving style at a certain track, and when the Xbox One does its daily contact to the mother ship, it uploads data on how you drive at a certain track: line, braking points, passing techniques. When a player races the AI in FM5, the Xbox One pulls down Drivatars from the cloud that meet the desired skill level for that track, and that’s sets the opponents list for that race. So even the AI in FM5 will have human tendencies, to include driver errors.

Sadly, Barry told us that no pit strategy options available (apparently pit stops are boring for most Forza racers in Microsoft’s focus groups. We’d opine that they had the wrong people in their focus group).

When asked about how the new Xbox One Kinect will be used by FM5, we learned that it will offer some pretty robust head-tracking in-cockpit. The older Kinect had problems with back-lit situations and some clutter environments, as well as tracking accuracy. The new Kinect can use low-light and other electro-optic modes to precisely track your facial features and give you accurate head movement in-car.

In terms of race hosting online, FM5 will offer more Multiplayer race hosting features on the serve, but didn’t elaborate.

As for car sounds, Alex told Chunx that for FM5 actual cars on modeled in the game were placed on dynamometers were used for engine sound recordings so they could capture exactly how the engine sounds under load. Tire sounds generated by the game are driven by the physics model, but Alek was not quite sure how they acquired them.

At the Turn 10 Forza 5 launch party, Turn 10 head Dan Greenawalt announced Indy Car would be a part of the upcoming title, with the current-gen Dallara chassis cars modeled in the game. And in a cooperative effort with the movie “Rush”, the McLaren M23 and Ferrari 312-2 Formula 1 cars from the 1976 season will also be modeled in the game.

RE: Forza Motorsport 5 for Xbox One to have Kinect headtracking, voice

saw a nice preview here. I'm not sure about having imperfections showing in Forza Vista. I just love looking at the cars in the pristine state of AutoVista. I do like the idea of music matching the moment. Games that had that feature were pretty cool. I'm glad that Top Gear is still involved.

While Gran Turismo slumbered, Forza Motorsport emerged as a worthy contender in a genre once considered to be well wrapped up by Sony's established racing property. When Gran Turismo 5 finally released in 2010 for PlayStation 3, many racing fans had already traded allegiances. And with the announcement of Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10's racer beats Gran Turismo to the punch as the first of the rival franchises to feature on next-gen hardware. The time just might be ripe for Forza to cement a pole position.

Bill Giese, design director of Forza 5, talked us through the many changes and improvements to the series' popular formula that the Xbox One architecture affords. The first major improvement brought to our attention pertains to Autovista: the mode introduced in Forza Motorsport 4 that enabled players to examine their vehicles in exceptional detail. Where Forza 4's Autovista featured only 24 vehicles, every single one of the "hundreds" of cars on offer (Turn 10 isn't talking exact numbers just yet) will feature in Forza 5's version, now simply named "Forza Vista."

While Forza 4's cars were indeed striking when viewed in Autovista, Giese and his teammates acknowledged that "there was something that still wasn't quite right, kind of in an uncanny-valley way." So Turn 10 re-examined the way it approached lighting and real-world materials and learned something crucial: their existing approach was too good for its own good, and it's the imperfections that make an object believable in a high-definition environment.

"When you walk up close to a car, you can see those little, tiny imperfections. Where the Armor All is buffed on, you can see the marks," explains Giese. This revelation caused Turn 10 to build the assets of Forza 5 with three different layers: base coat, metal flake and clear coat. "We apply these materials to every single aspect of the game," says Giese, which results in the most realistic visuals the series has ever seen.

Another important new aspect of Forza 5 is how it leverages the cloud connectivity that's become something of a sore point for many gamers regarding the Xbox One. For a more basic example of this cloud-powered Forza, your purchasing decisions (using in-game credit) and the liveries you choose to install are stored online; Forza 5 will continue to intelligently suggest new cars and liveries to players based on these preferences. For instance, Giese mentioned that he liked The Simpsons, and so if he purchased a Simpsons-based livery, the system would notify when new ones became available for his chosen cars from the community. "We have a robust community of amazing painters," says Giese, who contends that the new cloud features of Forza means players are "more easily able to enjoy that content." Players who design and create popular liveries are reportedly rewarded with bonus credits.

But the major use of cloud connectivity for Forza 5 is certainly the new implementation of the Drivatar system established in the very first Forza; AI that's designed to replicate a player's driving style, warts and all. "We gave players tools so they could train the Drivatar manually," begins Giese before admitting that it wasn't the most effective means of producing the desired effect. "How do you truly recreate how somebody drives?" The answer, he contends, is by enabling Forza 5 to constantly send a player's every tendency to the cloud; whether they tend to understeer or oversteer, whether they tend to brake early or brake late before a bend. Forza 5 recognises enough elements of driver behavior to keep an ongoing, up-to-date model of the way a player drives stored in the cloud.

"At the end of the day, when you put your controller down, that's when your Drivatar is going to go to work," says Giese. Without the need for the player to be online, their Drivatar will appear in the games their friends play, complete with their name, stats and driver behavior. A player's Drivatar will even earn credits for them while it races on their behalf. Giese informs me that there are no negative consequences of this feature for the player; the races a Drivatar participates in will not affect the player's career or stats in any way.

Turn 10 has employed the talents of Lucasfilm and Skywalker Sound to create an orchestral score for Forza 5 that adapts to the nature of a race. When players overtake other racers, take the lead or approach the finish line, "the score is going to ebb and flow based on that," says Giese. It's also understood that Forza's partnership with Top Gear continues in Forza 5. Jeremy Clarkson will this time be joined by his co-hosts in providing some degree of commentary, although Turn 10 is saying no more at this point.

The studio will also not confirm the final number of tracks to feature in Forza 5 at launch right now (although we know it's in the hundreds), but a Prague-based raceway was demonstrated for this session. "It's really important for us in Forza Motorsport 5 to build living, breathing worlds. Prague was a good canvas for that. It's an old-world city and there's texture we can see in the buildings." Giese also pointed out how the improved light modelling sees sunlight stream through the windscreen and reflects off the carbon-fibre dashboard in an extremely realistic fashion.

Forza 5 will run at 60fps at full 1080p, support head-tracking via Kinect and also allow players to summon the main game hub at any time with voice commands. It will utilise SmartGlass for leaderboards and achievements, and Giese suggested that more will be revealed about its SmartGlass in due course.

Giese also advised that Forza 5 will utilise dedicated servers for its multiplayer component, which is a first for the series. Turn 10 will make an announcement later in the summer about a partnership with Calspan, leading pioneers in tire testing. Specifically, Giese hinted that the partnership means big things for Forza 5's physics engine.

As a truly next-gen incarnation of arguably the top racing franchise on the market today, Forza 5 appears to be one of the best cards in Microsoft's hand right now. Even more than this, it might be the most convincing ambassador yet for the company's vision of a connected gaming future.

here's the video impression from the SimHQSports guys (see post #1):

and here's a fabulous video with hands-on at the Forza Motorsport 5 party (including Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt driving up to E3 in an Indy car!!!) and a lot of insight in the game:

Amazon France has leaked some new information about Forza Motorsport 5 and car lovers should be pleased with what the game has to offer. It has been revealed that the game has 120 new cars and supports 24 players online.

Quote:Link racing games: Whether you are a beginner or experienced pilot, Forza Motorsport 5 is for you! Hundreds of cars reproduced to perfection, more than 120 new available from the start. Change in your garage and choose to ride on the legendary circuit or in the heart of cities around the world.

A unique multiplayer experience: With 24 drivers for the first time on the same course online, do yourself a name among the gaming communities. The matchmaking system Smart Match offers a whole new multiplayer experience, fast and competitive, perfectly suited to your skills and style. Finally for the first time, Forza5 benefit from dedicated servers.

"Other parts of the car that the manufacturers intend you to look at and show off, they'll spend a bit more time on it - sand it down, smooth it out, paint it a little nicer. That's the kind of thing that we've introduced to our cars. It's all that minor imperfection that goes into a beautiful, perfect car. Get a little closer, and you realise all these things are contributing to that beauty."

This level of care and attention is possible, naturally, thanks to Xbox One's substantially superior RAM allowance. To put it all in hard numbers, Forza 4's cars were composed of between 54 and 60 unique materials. Those of Forza 5 are composed of around 1300, and Garcia insists that "we haven't hit the limit of what we can do".

The studio has ditched all existing car assets and started afresh. "That's one of the challenges of developing for a new console," adds Bill Giese, design director. "We had to rebuild every asset in the game. Unlike previous versions where we could leverage things and move them over, everything's all-new in this console."

This has entailed a considerable manpower investment. "We have a team across multiple countries, hundreds of artists, putting thousands of man hours into our content. One of the things we did as part of this new production process is we now have specialist artists who focus on very specific areas of the car that excel at what they do."

Forza 4's not entirely satisfactory damage modelling has also been rewritten, in the service of a desire to make "the story of the car your story", to quote studio head Dan Greenawalt.

"Even if you do don't crash the car there's going to be signs that you've gone to battle in this car," says content director John Wendl. "You'll see carbon brake dust and rubber pieces and dirt and grime from the world, and to Dan's point that is your story, it's what you did in the car."

Below are all the rest of the cars in Forza Motorsport 5 that have been announced up to this point. Each week the
previously announced cars will be moved here creating the all-up list for the Forza Motorsport 5 Showroom.

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